Category: Flimsies

This was the progress on the Starry Night Hexies a week ago – three half blocks to be made with full & half hexie flowers to be appliqued to the background fabric.

However I was more than ready for this project to get to the quilt top stage, so I focused on the handwork every evening. By Friday night I had the blocks completed and the center sewn together.

As you can see, I ended up moving some of the blocks around. I think that this arrangement gives a more balanced look. After waking up very, very early Saturday morning, the borders were added. First the side borders –

then the top & bottom borders with 4-patch kaleidoscope cornerstones.

The original pattern did not include an inner border or cornerstones, but I like the additional interest they add to my version.

Now I need a new handwork project, but before I can start one there are a couple of pants that need to be mended. Oh joy!

Isn’t it amazing how the same block can look so different depending on the setting? I like all the blue shirts and how calming the quilt feels. It will look great on my bed once it is quilted and bound.

Now I need to get busy on those hexies – they don’t sew themselves. Where are those darn leprechauns when you have year end goals to meet?

In between sewing the recycled shirt blocks (8 Swing Your Partner blocks below) I pieced together the Flower Baskets wallhanging from the Primitive Gathering’s book “Little Gatherings”

Before I even started I knew there were two things that I was going to change – make it a bit bigger and have the baskets set on point. My favorite thing about this wallhanging is the small wool flowers in the basket.

Sewing the baskets was a challenge, but the battle really began with the setting. After much consideration I decided to treat each basket as a square-in-a-square. The first block used the same background as the triangles which just looks like a sea of boring.

The second attempt used a different fabric but close to the same color as the background.

More boring and not any help at all. For the third time (I was starting to feel like Goldilocks & the Three Bears) I found this fabric and it was just right.

Next came the sashing, cornerstone and outer border – The sashing and cornerstone worked, but using the same fabric as the setting triangles for the accent in the border made the whole quilt too pink. Okay, let’s try the beige background for the border accent.

That is looking a lot better and I like the asymmetrical look. Now the finishing touch – all the wool flowers appliqued in the baskets and the three cornerstones.

Victory! My two goals were met with the baskets on point and a size increase from 14″ square to 19″ square. The goal is to quilt this little beauty up in the next week or so.

Happy Thanksgiving. May you all be victorious in your quilting battles.

While shopping at a local quilt shop, this fabric jumped in my cart and insisted in coming home with me.

I decided to Stack-n-Whack squares and then set them in the BQ pattern by Maple Island. It took a little bit of figuring to determine the square size in order to make the most efficient use of the fabric, but the cutting & sewing of the 4-patches was quick and easy.

The blocks are 9 1/2″ unfinished, so then it was back to paper and pencil to resize the BQ block which turned out to not be difficult. The next step was the background fabric.

I decided on a light green background color with a solid black frame. This involved a trip to the quilt shop to find the right fabric, but soon BQ blocks (14″ unfinished) were popping up on the design wall.

And by lunch time on Sunday all 16 blocks were completed and the quilt top sewn together.

The top measures 54″ square and there is no plan to put borders on it. This is one of the fastest quilt tops I have made from fabric bought to finished quilt top. Next up will be 2 more SBS blocks to celebrate another finish.

Another Cozy Quilt Design – Cotton Rainbow – was completed today. The piecing of this quilt top was very easy while the challenge was fabric selection. I think I spent more time deciding on the fabric than it took to sew.

It all started with a jelly roll that almost had the range of colors I wanted. The pattern calls for five fabrics in six different colorways shading light to dark. The jelly roll had the light-medium-dark fabrics, but needed two transition colors.

Luckily the first weekend in August was the Denver Quilt Shop Hop and my main focus was finding the fabric to smooth out the shading. I think I was successful – here are the 16 blocks with the layout suggested in the pattern.

This is just a quick mockup. If I had decided to go with this layout, I would have distributed the colors better.

But I really didn’t care for the large black holes, so what other arrangement could I come up with?

The first one started with the four blocks in the center surrounded by zigzags. I didn’t try any more layouts, since I liked this layout.

There was enough leftover from each fabric strip to cut out 3 – 2 1/2″ squares for the middle border. I sewed them together in the same order they are in the blocks – light to dark – and arranged them around the quilt center.

A black inner border, the pieced middle border and a black outer border was added to the center to end up with this quilt:

The pieced middle border is not in the Cotton Rainbow pattern. I wanted to add something interesting to the border and use up as much of the strips as I could. I am pleased with the final result.

Theo’s Blocks quilt top was supposed to be finished in May, however a summer cold/allergies wrecked all my goals for the week. It did get finished this morning which I am calling a good thing.

In the interest of honesty, I will admit that the border didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted it, but I did learn a lot from this project.

I was running so low on background fabric for the final border that I had to cut it at 3/4″ instead of 1 1/2″. This version of Theo’s Blocks measures 57″ square and – once quilted – will become a charity quilt.

A second Theo’s Blocks quilt is already in the planning stage with a controlled scrappy color choice and a different layout. Hopefully I will get it started in the next month or so.

I didn’t plan on having a finished quilt top so soon when I placed the blocks for the Oriental Bento Box on the design wall. However once I made the necessary design decisions the top came together very quickly especially considering that each quadrant consists of 5 pieces and 4 seams.

The gold fabric used for the sashing will also be the binding fabric and I like the bit of interest it adds to the top. Oriental Bento Box is a small lap measuring 52″ square.

Okay – really, I am going to get working on my Lincoln quilt. Promise!

Yesterday I finished the last of the wool applique on Pocket Full of Posies. The top finishes at 18 1/2″ x 24 1/2″ which will be the perfect size for the quilt hanger in the dining room. It looks very different from the original design, but I like all my changes and the end result.

I also made a decision on block designs for the Oriental Bento Box quilt top.

The larger blocks form a frame around the smaller block. It adds a bit of interest to the center of the quilt and brings the total number of blocks to 16 for a 4 x 4 setting. A gold oriental fabric will be used as sashing and binding. This isn’t my favorite quilt (and now I am wondering what was I thinking when I started these), but it will make a good charity quilt. Since the top just needs the sashing, I am hoping to have it finished tomorrow. Yeah – another UFO bin emptied.

The borders are on the Long Time Gone quilt and the top is finished. Yeah!

My first thought was that the outer border would be cut at 3 1/2″. Since I had enough of the focus fabric, I cut the borders at 4 1/2″ thinking that I would trim down after the machine quilting was finished. But you know what? I like this border width, so no cutting off will be necessary.

And after all that fussing about the black – I think that it is a perfect picture frame and focuses the attention to the blocks in the center. The conclusion is that sometimes your first instinct is correct and second-guessing is just a waste of time.

I would like to get this machine quilted soonish, but before that there are a couple of projects that just have to get done including a book bag and some mending. Soon, I promise.

The last border in the Apple Core quilt was attached today. Right now it measures 47″ x 56″, but it will be smaller once the edges are cut straight.

I think it took two or three times longer to pin the borders than it did to sew them. This was the best picture I could get of the pinned border. Doesn’t it look so strange?

While sewing on the Apple Core quilt top I also started a new leader/ender project. The pattern is the Hemingway Quilt from Timeless Treasures and designed by Osie Lebowitz. It is not on their website which isn’t a surprise since my printed directions are dated 2014.

The pattern calls for 10 1/2″ fabric squares, but I am using 6 1/2″ squares instead. I found 30 squares (6 squares of 5 different fabrics) in my stash which will make a fun fast quilt.